Ciena To Take Internet2 to 8.8Tbps

Another 100G deal for Ciena (NASDAQ:CIEN, news, filings) today.  The research network Internet2 has partnered with the Maryland-based equipment maker to overhaul its backbone as part of that BTOP grant they got a while back.  The purpose of the grant was to support UCAN, or the Unified Community Anchor Network project, aimed at connecting up schools, libraries, community colleges, public safety organizations, hospitals, and other worthy locations to real bandwidth.  That’ll be 200,000 of them nationwide to be exact, or perhaps ‘inexact’ is really the right word there.  Internet2 will also be handling more and more traffic from their fellow research networks and university clientele as well.

The 100G upgrade will take the Internet2’s capacity up to 8.8Tbps – 88 waves at 100Gbps each, which is of course far more than they’ll probably ever need.  But the whole point of Internet2 was to try out the next generation of networking, so new toys^H^H^H I mean gear is a necessity.  Losing out on this contract is of course Infinera, who was Internet2’s supplier in the 10G era.  Well, the 10G era is still here of course, but it’s no longer tomorrow’s network I guess, and Infinera’s 100G product isn’t on the shelves just yet. So Internet2 will take Ciena’s ActivFlex 6500 Packet-Optical Platform equipped with WaveLogic^™ coherent optical processors for its next spin.

For Ciena, this is a showcase deal that will help them bring 100G mainstream over the next few years.

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Categories: Internet Traffic · Telecom Equipment